


Hairline Fractures

by JulyStorms



Series: Before Colors Broke into Shades [30]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 07:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3601674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JulyStorms/pseuds/JulyStorms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s not crying this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hairline Fractures

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: “Things you said when you were scared.” Requested by Hairjel on Tumblr.
> 
> As a quick note, I want to make it clear that Lynne and Rene are the same character; Rene is the fan-translation and Lynne is the official translation. Even though the characters are the same, I write Lynne differently than I write Rene, due to interaction with two different RPers on Tumblr. Rene is [hoplismena](http://hoplismena.tumblr.com)'s interpretation of the character. I'm using both tags because for some reason they're not combined on AO3, so they are archived separately.

The sound of his breathing wakes her: it’s fast and harsh and panicked—and clear on the other side of the room between the bureau and the chest that belongs to Henning; it’s a small space—tiny, and she finds him easily. He always ends up there on nights like this, where a sound or a dream sets him back, throws him straight into a memory and turns it into reality.

He’s not crying this time.

He’s just curled up, fingers laced together over his messy hair, face pressed to his knees—like he thinks it’ll protect him from whatever-it-is he’s facing in his mind.

It makes Rene’s heart ache.

But she kneels in front of him, blanket tugged around her shoulders to keep the chill away, and begins the long, slow process of trying to bring him back.

It’s mostly a dialogue, like talking to a wall, except that she hopes he can hear her.

“Gelgar, you’re safe. Gelgar, you’re in the barracks with me; Henning’s visiting his family right now, but you’re fine. It’s quiet here. Everyone is asleep.”

She repeats it: over and over again.

And then, “Will you come back to bed? Do you want something to drink? Can you hold this blanket for me?”

Gelgar’s only response is a jerky shake of his head, but it means he’s more aware than he was a few minutes earlier. She encourages him to take the blanket. It’s familiar to him. She presses it into his hands, and he takes it after her fifth attempt. She’s still repeating: “Gelgar, you’re safe. Gelgar, you’re in the barracks with me.”

She thinks his name helps because titans can’t speak, and even if they could, they wouldn’t know his name. She hopes it helps him realize the flashback isn’t actually happening.

He returns to her slowly, his fingers tracing over the fabric of the blanket she’s given him to hold. He swallows and blinks and when he sees her, _notices her_ , he looks away again as if ashamed.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He doesn’t answer. She expects it from him, now. He never wants to talk about it. Talking helps her, but Gelgar is different. She tries something else.

“What about a hug?”

He swallows again and reaches for her. That’s how she knows he’s really back. He loves hugs—craves them, even. Even before they were intimate he’d take any excuse possible to get a hug from her. He buries his face against her shoulder and she holds him, her grip so tight around him it makes her arms ache after a while.

“This is a mistake,” he says when he pulls away, when she’s running her fingers through his hair to straighten it again. His voice is choked—hoarse, as if he hasn’t used it in days.

“What is?” she asks.

“Us.” He closes his eyes, and the breath he takes is shaky. “You’re gonna die and then I’m gonna—I’ll hafta—“

He can’t finish his sentence and even though she wants to ask him why he thinks that she’ll die and leave him, she doesn’t. He’s lived too long in this hell, and living a long time means he’s had the chance to see a lot of people die.

Of course he’s scared she’s going to die and leave him forever—leave him to remember her death if he’s there to see it, to imagine it if he’s not, to shake alone in a small, safe-looking corner of the room he shares with Henning when Henning’s visiting his family and nobody is woken by his frightened breathing.

“Let’s go back to bed,” she suggests. She doesn’t know what time it is, only that it’s too early to stay awake.

He agrees, after a while, and she knows he can’t sleep, so she lights a candle and he curls up next to her, head on her chest. She grabs the book they’ve been reading together from the bedside table and picks up where they left off earlier that same night. Maybe it’ll help him go back to sleep. Maybe it’ll help her.

Maybe it won’t do anything.

When she reaches the end of the story, the soft sound the book makes when she closes it disturbs him. He stirs again as she reaches for the nightstand to set the book down, as she takes a deep breath to blow out the candle.

“Rene?” he asks, shifting as she settles back into bed.

“Hm?”

“I didn’t mean what I said earlier—about…us being a mistake.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t mean it at all. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She smiles, fingers reaching for his hair to tug teasingly at the ends of it. “Your standards are so low.”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“I’m not that easy to get rid of, you know.”

“I know,” he whispers, and leans up to kiss her cheek. “I know, but that’s what I’m always dreaming about. About all the people I’ve ever known who died and it was all a stupid fluke or whatever—a slight miscalculation, an accident. Good soldiers and great people. It’s—”

The crappy thing is that there’s no answer, no solution. She can’t tell him she’s not going to die and she can’t promise to just keep living. It’s inevitable that one of them is going to die first, but who will it be? Who will be the one to die and who will be the one left to suffer with the memories—or lack thereof?

She can only promise to do her best, to try her hardest, to fight to live because that is all any of them can do.

She wraps her arms around him when she says it, when she promises that she’ll give living her all. She wishes she could promise more—could ensure life or a happy ending or no more titans, but she can’t promise a damn thing except to try, and she knows that it’s not enough.

It’ll never be enough. Not in this world. It hurts that she can’t do more. That neither of them can do more—that everything is up to chance in the end.

Gelgar doesn’t say it’s not enough, though.

He just holds her tighter, his breath even and warm against her neck—and she’s suddenly not sure if she’s holding him or he’s holding her.

Maybe it doesn’t matter that all she can do is promise to try.

Maybe, for him, that’s enough.


End file.
